The film intercuts between Martha's current struggle to adjust to her sister and brother in law's "real world" of relentless consumption, inhibition, and individuation - and traumatic flashbacks of the negative experiences of her life at the farm/cult.

McBurney intercuts that story with a contemporary one, about a math professor named Ruth and her husband, an Indian-born but thoroughly American futures trader named Al.Mr. MCBURNEY: What I wanted to try and make present on the stage was a kind of emotional charge, which also comes directly through the work and through the numbers, just as it comes through the relationship and the human warmth between these people.

The story intercuts with that of the two modern girls, though frankly without offering any really powerful perspective, though there is a "leak" between the two worlds: the smaller of the two sisters reading the story suddenly enters the tale and enacts the role of Marie-Catherine at the most vital moment in the story?

Shot by Iranian film director Babak Payami, the video intercuts footage of the band's performance with news images of street violence following Iran's 2009 elections, as well as a figure resembling the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.